By Captain Larry Jarboe

I can walk up this DIY ladder with no one in the boat. The motor counterbalances the load. It works so well it is even spoiling me for getting on board regularly.

Remove the stainless hinge bolt and the ladder easily comes off. But, I am keeping it on because it provides enough weight in the bow (10 lbs. maybe) to eliminate the need for a tiller extension when running solo.

This deep water reentry demo video is long overdue – The footage was contributed a few years ago by Berny Marsden from the UK, who designed and built a DIY wooden stitch-and-glue Wavewalk, with some help from Wavewalk’s design team 🙂 Berny named his DIY Wavewalk “Banana Split”, and his boat’s dimensions and load capacity are comparable to those of the 700 series.

In this video, Berny hops into the cockpit directly, in a straight angle. It’s also possible to get in from a sharper angle, in a position that’s more aligned with the boat, as well as climb in from the rear.

Note that if there is some water in one of the hulls, the extra weight on that side can make reentry easier if you do it from the other, lighter side.

We’ve decided to publish this video for the benefit of our clients who dive and practice spear fishing.

It sounds really exciting – the closest you can get to a hunting experience such as the Inuit must have felt when they hunted animals and birds with their skin-on-frame kayaks. This type of fishing is popular worldwide – not necessarily from kayaks but usually from other small boats that native people have traditionally used in different places.

It also sounds quite simple: You stand or ride in your W Kayak, scout the water, spot a fish, aim and try hitting it with your spear, trident or arrow.

There are however some issues to consider: First of all, in some places it’s not legal to fish this way. Second, the water conditions might not be suitable for this type of fishing: Murky water, vegetation and waves can prevent you from seeing anything even if you’re standing and looking down right near your kayak, where visibility is usually better. Third, spear and arrow wounds are bigger and more serious than injuries caused by fishing hooks, which means that catching a fish this way and releasing it will most likely result in its death, and this defies the purpose of the ‘Catch and Release’ idea. Fourth, some fish won’t just wait for you to come near them with your kayak, and some are too cautious and won’t get near you when you’re anchored somewhere and waiting for them.